WINTER WOODSMOKE
Suspended in the winter chill
Of Christmas Eve, upon the hill
A smoke hung on the red-rimmed sun
The bonfire was begun
By someone not too far away
Some good old boy, stepped out that day
Who fancied he might have a fire
Build the year a funeral pyre
– Steal an hour or two to think
Before a Christmas drink.
The winter blossomed in that blaze
The dwindling of December days
In holly berries brighter then
Than anyone remembered when
Who knew the wooded hills and lanes
Recalling frosted window panes
The glacier-minted morning light
In cottage bedrooms after night
Under a childhood eiderdown
Or stood in rough old dressing gown
Inherited from older teens.
Now, struggling into jumpers, jeans
Palmolive soap and tea downstairs
The collies by the kitchen chairs
Nosing round the a la carte
Prior to a seasonal start
Soliciting for morsels left
And risking sundry kicks for theft.
The morning sun, its low-slung rays
Splintered through the fuggy haze
Of kitchen steam – the pilot lit
The boiler grumbling over it
A frying-pan, lightly smoking there
And Christmas spirit in the air:
"Now, chop the kindling, fetch some logs
And walk those dogs!"
The smoke fanned out, a lazy blue
Across the fleece of oaks, and through
The last gold ingots on the birch
Beside a greystone church
A lone old woman, in that place
Arranging flowers, her pensive face
Remembering the wartime planes
Autumn fields like counterpanes
Widowhood and paper chains
Lychgates – winter rains.
And in the Old Town, down below
At Christmas, all those years ago
The glad-rag restaurants and hotels
Rich in port-and-pudding smells
The lunchtime clatter and the roar
Which issued from the kitchen door
The chefs and front-of-house at war
From starter, through to petit four.
The rich old ducks and tweedy toffs
Glugging tinctures for their coughs
As waiters minnied round with gin
And porters dragged potatoes in
A clerk while working out a bill
Observed the blaze upon the hill
And noted how the skeins of grey
Like chiffon scarves, draped on the day.
Came drifting, rather gently down
All afternoon towards the town
To hang by railway bridges there
Squatting on the frosty air;
A fragrance made of leaves and bark
As sweet in that encroaching dark
Which covered up the guttering sun,
As chestnuts, slightly overdone,
Peeled on littered front-room floors
When all the lights go on indoors
And in that moment, nothing's said The birds will put themselves to bed And silence reigning in the hedge Will reach the woodland edge And from the dying fire, the crown A shower of sparks, its seeing-down. A ballet for the winter night. Out of darkness into light The dwindling of December days Which blossom in that blaze.